Rudolph Reti
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Rudolph Réti (November 27, 1885 - February 7, 1957) was a musical analyst, composer and pianist.
Réti was born in Uzice in Serbia and studied music theory, musicology and piano in Vienna. He was involved in establishing the Salzburg Festival and the International Society for Contemporary Music. He later emigrated to the United States of America and became an American citizen.
Réti is best remembered today for his distinctive method of musical analysis, which he called thematic process. This technique consisted of taking short melodic motifs and tracing their repetition and development through the piece. Rhythm is completely ignored.
As a pianist, Reti gave the premiere of Schoenberg's Six little piano pieces op 19, and was taught by Eduard Steuermann, himself an eminent champion of Schoenberg, and supporter of modern music.
Reti's analytical procedure is best understood concurrently to the work of other contemporary German analysts of the time such as Schenker and Schoenberg. Like Schenker, and Schoenberg, Reti's analysis of musical works was primarily motivic, tracing the evolution of a musical work from a melodic kernel. The preoccupation the three aforementioned theorists had with such procedure stems from a metaphysical belief that the works of the "great masters" (as exemplified in the First Viennese School) were unified thematically often, from a single idea. The metaphysical basis of this idea was the fact that such unity, was thought to be a metaphor for the unity of God's creation. Thus in Reti's analysis the "thematic process" is explored, in Schenker the analysis takes the form of a reductionist procedure, and in Schoenberg the unity of a musical work from a "Grundgestalt" (basic shape) is asserted.
Reti's method has been criticized by amongst others, Nicholas Cook. Cook, himself a theorist of note, who wrote the "Guide to music analysis", has criticized what he saw to be Reti's over-concern with proving the validity of his method.
Whatever one's opinion, it is clear that Reti's analysis must be understood within the context of early twentith century musicoligy. See also: Tonality#Tonality, Atonality, Pantonality.
Writings
- The Thematic Process in Music (1951). ISBN 0837198755.
- Tonality, Atonality, Pantonality: A study of some trends in twentieth century music (1958). ISBN 0313204780.
- Thematic Patterns in Sonatas of Beethoven (1967).
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